Photos: Red-throated Loon, Sperm Whale (5/05 off Cape Hatteras), South jetty of Indian River Inlet, Cape Henelopen Light.
Saturday morning I met some friends at Primehook NWR and tried to locate the Northern Shrike for the third time. Hans Holbrook, Bill Hubick, Tom Feilds and their girlfriends Sara, Becky, and Geraldine and myself (without Colleen) searched diligently throughout all the meadow habitats on the refuge for the damned shrike and came up empty once again. We did find a nice sparrow flock which held an American Tree Sparrow. The Tree Sparrow perched nicely in a bush and allowed me to take ten or twelve photos in which not one turned out real well. If Am. Tree Sparrows were not so rare on the coastal plain I would not have included the picture in the photo gallery. While I was getting into my car my trusty tan corduroys decided to give out around my posterior. Now normally this wouldn't have been a big deal if it was just the boys but there were three women birding with us. I had a problem. When I got out of my car I announced to everyone that I had ripped the ass out of my pants. Bill started taking pictures right away. Thankfully I had a nice pair of pea green ski pants in the trunk of my car that covered my anterior rip and we got back to birding. We headed to Cape Henelopen and walked around the point where there wasn't much but a few Surf Scoters, Sanderlings, and Cormorants. By now it was lunch time and we had worked up a thirst so we went and had libations and sandwhiches at the Dogfish Head Brewpub in Rehobeth Beach. Indian River Inlet was our last stop. We wanted to hit the inlet at high tide which was around 3pm because earlier in the week a female North Atlantic Right Whale and a her calf had been frequenting the inlet and we were hoping to get pictures. North Atlantic Right Whales are amoung the rarest large whale species on the planet. Estimates put the entire population around 350 animals. So with cameras armed and ready we perched ourselves on the jetty and waited...until sunset without really seeing anything. A Red-throated Loon and a female Boat-tailed Grackle gave us some great photo ops and it was fun hanging out with friends. I posted a photo up above of a Sperm Whale that was seen off of Cape Hatteras back in 2005 on a pelagic trip out of Manteo, North Carolina. We saw many Sperm Whales that day along with Cuvier's Beaked Whales.
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